“A human? You want me to track and kill a human?” Trying to stifle the derisive snort, I pulled the file closer. “You’re kidding. Did you forget that I’m a vampire and tracking humans is what we do? All the time?”
“I did not say I wanted him necessarily dead,” he reasoned. “I said I want him destroyed.”
I gagged. “You want me to meddle in human affairs?”
“If you can’t meddle in their affairs without being found out, how will you learn to manipulate them to your will?”
I opened the folder, and the picture of the man was staring at me. He was a handsome human, the kind I would toy with before draining him and leaving him for dead. I smiled, licking my lips, thinking about howgoodhe would taste…
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nial raise an eyebrow.
I wondered if he knew what I was thinking.
But, in any case, I looked through the file. The target was a very wealthy man, and there were many things to imply that he had ripped off and lied to Cato about financial matters.
“You’re worried about your gold, overlord?”
He chuffed at that. “I’m worried about you completing this task, my dear.”
I continue to thumb through the pages. This was easy. Really. I didn’t see this as a challenge. I had brought down people more powerful and wealthy than this man. Kings and princes. Cato was up to something with this one.
“What are your stipulations, overlord?”
“Take him down. He must be humiliated. Dead and used is also acceptable.”
“I cannot refuse your challenge. Please finish.” I waited. There had to be more.
His teeth gleamed in the light as he grinned, a flash of fangs against his pale white skin, with lips the color of a blood-red moon.
It was his smirk that made me decide my conceited father was going to die. I would send my own warriors against him, drain him of the blood in his body, and leave him in the hot noon sun of the Atacama Desert to turn to the dust he was composed of. His bones would bleach and crumble, and I would have him cast into the sea, to scatter him to the four winds for the pleasure of seeing him destroyed. And I would excise his name from the Council of Overlords, much as my grandfather had done to Akhenaten in the days of the 18th Dynasty.
His eyes roamed my features, and his smile merely grew. “You have forty-eight hours.”
The audience behind us gasped.
It was only because of my expectations of his horrid nature that I didn’t join them.
Niallan leaned forward. “That is unreasonable.” His voice was even, maybe bored.
“That is my challenge.”
Lord Belshazzar, as the leader, could not speak against the limitations or the Challenge itself. He could, though, see the raging anger in my eyes and nodded in acknowledgment of it. “Lord Cato, are you sure this is the Challenge you wish to issue?”
“I am,” he said. “A true queen must be able to act quickly and without hesitation.”
Nial cleared his throat and sat back, mumbling quietly, “He’s gonna regret that.”
“Something to say, Master Niallan?” Cato tossed an evil eye in his direction.
“No, your lordshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Mind your place.”
“I’ll try.”
